This weekend I attempted the Casey's Clone. I used Jake's version from reply 160. Overall it turned out close but not exactly what I remember. It's been several months since I've had Casey's so my memory is may not be perfect.

I scaled the recipe to 14" , see below, but I still found it thinner than I expected, even though my pan was 13"(dark non stick) . I used King Arthur Bread Flour. Great Value Whole Milk Mozzarella, and a tomato paste based sauce. Things I plan to change for next time:

Larger ball - 14.4oz, I think, was a little small. Probably scale it up to about 16oz for a 14".Slightly higher hydration, it was a little too crispy and most of the Casey's pizza I've had are just above undercooked(I'm going for accuracy). Slightly lower sugar, may have been my sauce but the dough seemed a little sweet.Little more cheese. I used about 7.5 ounces. Will shoot for 8-8.5 ounces next time.

I think the changes you have in mind are reasonable under the circumstances. As noted in Reply 106 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,32972.msg329860.html#msg329860, I estimated a hydration swing of between 45% and 55%, so there is room for playing around with the hydration value. As for the sugar, there were gaps in the Casey's nutrition information that prevented calculating an amount of sugar to use. That applied to the oil as well. So, some tweaking of these ingredients may be required so long as the pecking order remains the same. Remember, also, that the type of oven you are using at home will not perform the same as the conveyor ovens used by Casey's. Conveyor ovens have controlled top heat that works differently than with a standard home oven. I learned this when I worked on reverse engineering and cloning the Papa John's pizzas.

Lespaul, I am glad to see that you tried this pizza. Looks pretty darn good and I am glad you think it is close. Thanks for trying it!

I will say it is not a perfect clone but pretty close. I suspect that is due to the lack of all the chemical additives. I stand behind my belief that the pizza being sold today at Casey’s is not the stuff of yesteryear. I know we used to pull dough that had been fermenting from the cooler, and I believe all of the chemical additives in today’s mix are trying to recreate that flavor in a same day dough.

That being said, it took some time, and tweaking of ingredients, before I felt it was the right flavor. I think that the cheese and sauce are as important to the overall flavor of the finished pie as the crust is. I tried the Great Value whole milk mozzarella and feel the flavor of that cheese was not in line with the flavor profile of Casey’s. The closest I have come so far is Trader Joes, but I may try the Stella at some point (maybe not?)

I would also recommend upping the weight of both the dough ball and the cheese even more! We have confirmed these things to be true for a large 14” Casey’s

Dough: 17 or 18 ounces (depending on location)

Cheese: 379 grams, or 13.37 ounces

Pepperoni: 33 slices weighing 57 grams, or 2.01 ounces

Sauce: 130 grams, or 4.59 ounces (maybe a little less)

Bake: 465 in a Lincoln impinger conveyor for 6 (or 6 ˝ ) minutes

I have been cooking at 480 for up to eight minutes to get the cheese to melt. This has led to a darker crust but never have I had any kind of crispy crust. I will agree with you that old Casey's pizza was just shy of being under cooked, and I kind of liked that. However it had been some time since I had purchased Casey’s when this thread was started, and the pizza they are selling today is thinner, darker, and crispier than any pizza I remember from my youth.

A note on the thickness factor ; Dough (18 ounces) is for a large (14") pizza; the corresponding thickness factor = 18/(3.14159 x7 x 7) = 0.11693 17oz will result in TF 0.110434TF 0.09 (18 ounces) is for a 16" pizza which is what I have been using lately. This was initially a mistake but we liked the result and feel it is closer to what we have actually purchased lately.

As for the whey, I was under the impression that the whey protein concentrate supplement, was not the same as baker’s whey. I would be interested if anyone has more information than I have been able to find on this matter

Anyway Lespaul, I hope you liked it enough to try it again and hope to hear from anyone else who may try it.

After thinking about your experience with the Casey's pizza, I decided to try out a few of your thoughts about this pizza to see if I could achieve the desired result. I took the hydration up 3%, and as you suggested about 16oz for 14inches (TF 0.103937) I decided to round to TF 0.1. I left the bakers percents the same in regard to sugar, but adjusted my sauce to include even less sugar, salt, and spices. Same 480 degree bake, but about 7 1/2 minutes at a greater thickness factor resulted in a less done (but in no way raw) crust. About 14 ounces of wmlm cheese.

I found just three percent change in hydration made this dough more difficult to work with, and had a little bit of difficulty picking up and placing 16 plus inches of loose dough in the pan after rolling on the counter. My dough usually holds it's shape well but this was much more extensible and led to a thin spot, oversized dough, and some frustration on my part. Cooler heads prevailed (my wife talked me down) and I resolved the issues without reballing. Docked with a fork in the pan dressed per usual experimentation topping of pepperoni.

This pizza was definitely softer, less chewy, and miles away from crispy. The sugar and salt in everything but the sauce was the same as every other attempt, and this pie was bland. I actually reached for the garlic salt, and even then only ate one small slice. This suggests to me that your sauce may have affected the overall flavor of the whole slice.

This pizza wasn't bad, but I have never had Friday night pizza still in the fridge on Sunday night before. The family still liked it but said it was not as good as the last pepperoni I made. I really just underseasoned the sauce, and it was just too soft for me.

I believe if your pizza was too thin and crispy before you may want to try these changes and see if you get results more in line with what you were looking for. I however am going back to the 0.09 TF and longer bake.

When I made my first attempt I made two dough balls. I froze the second and used it this weekend. I'll post it later but with that experience and yours, I won't be as aggressive with the changes for my next attempt.

For the transfer, although you may never have this problem again (and I having never actually tried this) I'd try folding the skin in half with piece of parchment in between and maybe underneath if possible and then unfolding on the pan.

No problem man. I am happy experimenting. I usually fold my dough in quarters to transfer from counter to pan and this was just so slack and wet it didn't work out. Like I said it wasn't bad, just not as good as previous attempts. All of it still got eaten. My son said I haven't made a bad pizza in a long time! I like this pizza and am soooo happy someone else has even tried it! I look forward to any attempts you may make in the future!

This weekend I used a ball from my first batch which I froze in the meantime. It seems to thaw well so I'll be doing this like I do with most of my other formulas.

To change this up a bit and to help verify some things, I tried a taco version. IMO, Casey's has the best taco pizza I've tried(To be fair only a few ). Probably the Doritos.

In order to be able to do the fold-over crust, I rolled it a little thinner.

The topping consisted of refried bean and salsa mixture for the sauce, seasoned ground beef and Mozzarella. Then post baked fresh topping of lettuce, green onions, Jalapeno, sour cream and Doritos. This is not accurate to what Casey's offers. But as long as Doritos are involved it's pretty close.

I cooked at a slightly lower temp 450 versus 465.

Things I learned:

I still want to try a little thicker version.It didn't taste sweet, so I agree with Jake, it was my sauce.I still plan to up the hydration a little, but maybe only a point or two. Still plan to add more cheese. I didn't track how much this time since I had a bunch of other topping going on it.I may try a higher temp of 485.

It will be a couple weeks before my next attempt, I have some other types in the freezer, but I'll try and post an update when I do.